The Catcher in the Rye

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Clarke

In our lives, there are many different people we meet, and all of them unique in their own way. Each and every person has their own personality, and meeting someone new can be a wonderful experience. An event like no other is meeting the protagonist from the novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield.  Encountering him is an experience all on its own, for he is a rare literary character.  Holden is a complex character affected by the death of his brother Allie, challenged by bipolar disorder, and burdened by his self-imposed responsibility as the catcher in the rye.

The life of Holden Caulfield changed forever the day his brother Allie died of leukemia. He held a special place in his heart for his younger brother, and when Allie died, Holden took a turn for the worse. His reaction to Allie’s death is shocking yet understandable during a time of grief and anger.  Holden admits to sleeping in the garage the next night. “I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken and all.” (Salinger 37) Expert analysis claims: “Ashamed of his need- a sixteen year old crying out for emotional support- and unable to accept kindness since in his guilt he feels he doesn’t deserve it, Holden is locked into his grief and locked out of family and society.”(Miller 132-133) Even after Holden has resolved many of his issues, he still has not dealt directly with the death of his brother, even by the end of the novel (Bloom 14).  One of the most telling pieces of evidence comes when Holden is asked by his roommate Stradlater to write a composition for him about something described in detail. Holden agrees, and decides to describe Allie’s baseball mit, the only thing he has left of him. After labouring over the composition for hours, Stradlater returns and reads the piece. Not only does he get angry that Holden wrote about a baseball glove, he knows it is too good to claim as his own. He insults Holden, “No wonder you’re flunking the hell out of here. You don’t do one damn thing you’re supposed to.”(Salinger 41) Holden immediately reacts by tearing up the paper. His feelings are basic; if the paper is not good enough for Stradlater, then it is not good enough for anyone. Further evidence of Holden and his inability to come to terms with Allie’s death are apparent when he describes his feelings towards ‘goodbyes’. Holden indicates that he is not very good with them, and when leaving Pencey, he needs the reassurance that it is, in fact, goodbye. “I was trying to feel some sort of good-by...I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel worse.” (Salinger 4)  Holden does not get to say goodbye to Allie, for he did not attend the funeral because of his broken hand. “I wasn’t there. I was still in the hospital.” (Salinger 155) Holden was not able to have closure over the death of Allie, and is essentially still grieving.  Afterwards, Holden and his sister Phoebe discuss his catcher fantasy, which was brought on by Allie’s death. It is Allie who fuels his desire to save children from growing up and becoming corrupt. (bellmore-merrick) In his catcher fantasy, Holden expresses the idea that he should have saved Allie. Being so young, it is likely that he blamed himself for his death and never got over it, even after many years (Miller 140).  As the novel draws to a close, Holden is on the verge of a breakdown. As he walks up Fifth Avenue in New York City, “something very spooky happens.”(Salinger 197) Almost delirious, sweating in the cold air and increasingly ill, Holden imagines that as he steps off a curb he may disappear before he reaches the other side. He asks Allie to help him by crying out to him, “Allie, don’t let me disappear.”(Salinger 198) This is the last time Holden calls out to Allie, which means he is now turning away from the past and death and into a new direction (Miller 141).  From this point on, Holden begins making changes and better decisions (Bloom 20).  The question of whether or not Allie will ever be summoned again remains, and the reader is left wondering if Allie Caulfield rests in peace.

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Throughout the course of the novel, Holden becomes more and more depressed about life in general. He often makes comments on how something depresses him, or something makes him crazy, or he acts like a madman. There is something strange about his behaviour and discontent for everything. Holden suffers from bipolar disorder, which makes a person become clinically depressed and is defined as  “a common illness characterized by current episodes of mania and major depression.”(bipolarhome) Holden may only be observed throughout these four days in New York, but we see him later in the novel, with a slight understanding of ...

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